This past weekend Sonya and I where lucky to have the whole weekend to ourselves and headed up to Door County Wisconsin for a fun 5 year anniversary weekend and to do the Fall 50 mile road race. Now to most having 3 days without the kids is no big deal, but considering we had not had more than 1 night without the kids in over 4 years this was big. Thanks Mom Decker !!!!
We headed up early Friday morning so we could get out to our cabin in the afternoon. The drive was great as it was sunny and we got to talk non stop with each other for 6 hours straight; wow how cool. We rented a cabin in Bailey Harbor which is like 25 min's up from Sturgeon Bay where the race finish and headquarters was. The cabin was great with everything we could want or need. Hell I would love to come back and just hang out some long weekend. Well as fun as it was to sit we needed to get to work and get all our drop boxes together for the race as we did not have a crew and would need to have anything we would need all ready and waiting for us before hand. This is different for us as we always have a crew. Hell I think in races that I do more people know who my crew is as there are many of them and they are great. This weekend I traded there help with the race for a weekend alone with Sonya. After getting the drop boxes done we went into town to drop them off and get some diner. I was looking forward to a great big steak!!!
After a good nights sleep it was go time. Alarm went off at 4am and I was up and ready to go. Even though I did not really train for this I was excited and felt like it would be a great test for me. Where as Sonya had trained super hard and was ready to roll. I was very excited for her as I knew if she took care of herself she would do great.
We where greeted at the start with super weather and temps in the low 40's. We knew it was going to rain at some point in the day, we just hoped it was later in the race. After saying hi to our go friend John Storkamp and wishing him good luck we took our places at the line. Boom we where off.
Sonya and I settled into a good pace between 7:55 and 8:05 miles. The goal was to run 8-8:15 miles as long as we could. I knew for me I should be ok till 20ish or so at this pace then I might need to crack down and really work the mental side of things. It was so much fun running with Sonya. We kept a good pace, talked a little and got to see such a beautiful area together as we made our way down the peninsula starting from Gills Rock. As the miles rolled by I was happy with how easy Sonya looked and how I felt overall. Maybe this was going to be our day?
As we rolled past the marathon split in 3:32 I knew I was over half way done. I was feeling like my lack of serious training was starting to show a bit but I kept at it. It started to rain a bit at 28 miles and it was at that point I told Sonya to keep it rolling as I was going to go to the bathroom and just take a little extra care of myself. The last I saw of her in the distance was at mile 30 and it was raining hard, and would continue that way the rest of the race. I just hoped she would remember to take her rain coat at the mile 35 aid station. I knew I was looking forward to mine that was for sure.
Mile by mile went by and while I was a bit sore I kept running as much as I could and kept a good pace. I would take each mile and do a 1 min walk then run like 7:40ish pace for a few min's then take a 1 min walk and repeat that over and over. Once I got to 40 miles I knew I only had signal digits for miles left and that made me real happy. I fought thou the negative thoughts and was coming out the other side. With 2 miles left I just felt myself getting faster. The end was near, I was going to run a solid time, and Sonya was still ahead so I knew she ran a great race. As I crossed the finish line I pumped my fist two times. Once for me and once for my wife as I knew she had won the race and I was so proud of her. Our times at the end was Sonya 7:14 and myself 7:24 for 50 miles.
The next day after a great time looking around and such I was driving back home to our family and found myself looking back on the race weekend. It was great to have some time to just us, we both saw that we could do well, I saw that given some solid training I am not to far off where I used to be some years ago and we saw that we missed and loved our family.
